A Woman Became Millionaire After Giving Massages At Google

When Ms Brown began working in Google as a part-time masseuse, the company was just a small Silicon Valley start-up with 40 employees. Together with the $450 a week she got a pile of Google stock options, which she never thought would be worth a penny.

However after five years of work Ms Brown retired a wealthy woman, with the millions of dollars on her bank account, and the stock options which are still rising in value. 52 years old former Google employee now lives in an enormous house in Nevada and hires her own masseuse and a private Pilates instructor. Ms. Brown set up a charity foundation and traveled all around the world. More then that she wrote a book, still unpublished, about her lucky job: “Giigle: How I Got Lucky Massaging Google.”

Ms. Brown is not the only employee-millionaire from Google. Although no one has officially counted the exact number, there are approximately 1000 people who own more then $5 million worth Google stock.

The fact is, the Google present and former employees hold stock options cost about $2,1 billion all. The current employees, in addition, have the so-called unvested options, the options which can not be immediately cashed. The value of these unvested options hits $4 billion.

The considerable portion of Google stock options, however, belong to the chief staff. For example, one of the Google founders, Larry Page owns $20 billion stock, while another, Sergey Brin holds $19,6 billion. Three Google senior vice presidents together hold $160 million worth of options.

However unlike Ms. Brown the new employees nowadays are not granted with thousands of Google options in their exercise price, or the determined price which would have the employees to pay for purchasing the stock, set in pennies. The half of the Google’s 16000 employees have been working for less than one year, and their options have a $500 exercise price. However they can already see the rise of price on their options. The number of stock options granted to the new employee of the company are usually determined by the latter’s new position and his/her salary level.

The rise in Google’s stock is affecting the deepest reaches of the company. “It’s very clear that people are taking nicer vacations,” said one Google engineer, who asked not to be identified because it is also not Googley to talk about personal fortunes made at the company. “And one of the guys who works for me but has been there longer showed up at work in a really, really nice new car.”

Although the tale of Google Cinderella- Ms. Brown is not likely to be repeated in future, the general well-fare of its employees will steadily rise, together with the values of the Google stock options they hold, and the years they will spend working for the company.